Former Wolves midfielder Dave Edwards has praised Nathan Collins for his contributions in last weekend’s 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Collins came on for Wolves at half-time to make up a back three with Craig Dawson and Max Kilman.
The £20 million signing from Burnley has lost his place in the starting XI to Dawson, and hadn’t featured for Wolves for a few weeks.
But Julen Lopetegui called on him at Molineux on Saturday as part of a big tactical switch-up.
And the move worked out really well, as it helped Wolves to push higher up the pitch and put Spurs under some pressure. In the first-half, it was Spurs who were the aggressors.
Collins didn’t really show any signs of rust, and looked more than comfortable playing where he was.
Speaking on the Wolves Weekly podcast, Edwards gave credit to Collins for his efforts.
He said: “Nathan Collins deserves a lot of credit. Since Dawson’s come in it’s been difficult for him to get into the team.
“That would have done him the world of good.
“Having the more solid, three out-and-out defenders… I felt like Lopetegui knew they were going to have to defend crosses a bit more because they (wing-backs) were getting higher up the pitch and they were conceding that space out wide.
“All three of them (centre-backs) played really well. It would have been difficult for Collins to come in having not played for a few weeks. Knowing everyone’s eyes would be on him. But I thought he did really well.”
Nathan Collins was excellent against Tottenham after a testing time lately, he’s shown he can still have a big part to play for Wolves
It was great to see Collins come back into the team and have a good impact.
Edwards is right – it can’t have been easy for him given his lack of minutes lately. And coming into a back three would also have been a challenge, since it’s not the regular system for Wolves anymore.
Collins coming on and making up a solid back three is something we could be seeing quite a bit moving forwards.
Against Spurs it was extremely effective in helping tip the momentum in Wolves’ favour.
It gave Wolves more control and actually helped the team to become much more threatening up the other end.